Marcus wasn’t at all surprised by the name of Eddie’s nightclub. It was just the kind of thing his former friend would come up with: both self-aggrandizing and egomaniacal. He and Maggie pulled up to The Great Caruso at ten after nine, but already the party was in full swing. All manner of Italian sport and German luxury automobiles lined the mansion’s massive parking lot.
As they reached a security gate, a muscular man in a black tuxedo and white gloves stood at attention. The guard approached the driver, said a few words, and then, approaching their descending side window, said, “Identification, please?” Marcus recognized the bulge of a pistol beneath the guard’s jacket.
Maggie held up her DOJ credentials. The guard smiled back and said, “Mr. Caruso welcomes you to the party.” The attendant bowed cordially, and the security gate parted.
The whole place made Marcus want to puke.
The guy had acted off a script and had clearly been trained to allow entry to the “party” in a very specific manner. Marcus wondered if his former friend had choreographed the employees personally on how they should speak and behave. Eddie always was a control freak, down to every last detail.
The element that disturbed Marcus most was the syntax the attendant had been instructed to use. It wasn’t “I welcome you” or “We welcome you.” It was, “Mr. Caruso welcomes you to the party.” As if Eddie had downgraded the guard from human being to robotic slave, as if the kid wasn’t even allowed to have his own identity. He was merely an extension of “The Great Caruso.”
The guard followed the limo through the gate and then up to the mansion’s porte cochère. He opened the door for them and said, “Mr. Caruso awaits you in the grand ballroom.”
As he stepped out, Marcus said, “Buddy, Mr. Caruso is a douchebag, and your life will turn out a lot better if you quit this job and get yourself a respectable one. Maybe apply at Burger King.”
The guard looked dumbfounded, as if he were searching for a scripted response to such a statement.
Marcus didn’t wait for the canned retort. He started up the marble stairs toward a pair of French doors—twelve feet tall, white with gold accents. The entrance made Marcus feel as if he was walking up to the pearly gates.
Inside was a grand foyer with a coat check and several small sitting areas around a giant rotunda. Men and women sat in some old leather chairs surrounding the periphery of the foyer. Some laughing, some kissing, others smoking cigars or fluted cigarettes.
The doors to the “Grand Ballroom” were just as large as the entry doors, but these were made of a dark mahogany. Two more men in tuxedos stood on each side, ready to allow entry farther into Eddie’s little kingdom.
It wasn’t until the doors parted that Marcus finally realized that Eddie’s club was a themed hangout. The entire show had been designed to make people feel as if they were in The Great Gatsby, or at least some cellular generation equivalent. Most of the women wore lace flapper dresses. They spun on the dance floor, their many-colored sequins glittering like a sea of rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and sapphires. The men wore tuxedos and stylish formal suits. The outfits, the decorations, the atmosphere screamed 1920s New York, but the music was some kind of bastardized amalgam of techno, hip-hop, jazz, and blues.
The pulsing beat hurt Marcus’s chest, and the lights made his world throb. But it seemed successful in pushing the wannabe gangsters and flappers to grind closer and lower.
A sprawling staircase climbed each side of the long, rectangular ballroom. Eddie Caruso was descending the closest staircase with the swagger of a film icon. And, Marcus had to admit, Eddie looked the part. He wore a simple black tuxedo and a bow tie. His hair was slicked back and looked to be professionally styled. He even had the boyish good looks, but the suave persona crumbled a bit when Eddie opened his mouth.
His voice was soft with a thick Brooklyn accent, but it was also low and scratchy like an old man who couldn’t catch his breath. During their sixth-grade year, Eddie’s house had burned to the ground. Eddie and his younger sister had been trapped in the fire, and Eddie came away with scarred lungs and scorched vocal cords. Marcus recalled that Eddie didn’t really mind his new voice. In fact, Eddie had used it to his own advantage, letting it add to his tough-guy reputation.
Eddie spread his arms and, in his sandpaper voice, said, “What do you think of the place?”
Marcus glanced around at the extravagance and excess for a few seconds and then said, “It reminds me of a low-budget musical at a community rec center. Do people have to pay to get in here?”
Eddie smiled and said, “So you’re still an epic prick. That’s good to know.”
“And you’re still a flaming narcissist. In my experience, when someone keeps telling you about how ‘great’ they are, that usually means the opposite is true.”
“It’s a themed club, jackass, and it makes money like we have the printing press in the basement. Whole thing was my idea. I noticed that a lot of rich kids and suburbanites were having these Gatsby-themed parties. It started as a tax write-off, but apparently there was something to it, and The Great Caruso was born. But it’s all for show.”
“If it’s just a show, then why not make it legitimately ‘Gatsby’ themed and hire someone to play Gatsby instead of inserting yourself into the role.”
“Then we’d have to pay for the rights. As it stands, our theme is just the 1920s, and using my real name adds to the mystique.”
“Or you just like to stroke your own ego.”
Eddie smiled. “I have people lined up to stroke it for me, Old Sport.”
Maggie intervened, saying, “Mr. Caruso, thank you so much for agreeing to meet with us. Your place here really is something. Isn’t that right, Marcus?”
“Sure, it’s beautiful, Eddie, and not creepy at all. Just like if Robert Redford had a baby with Lady Gaga.”
Eddie laughed, but his eyes showed his annoyance. “Don’t hold back, Marcus. Tell me what you really think.”
Maggie said, “Do you have somewhere private that we can talk, Mr. Caruso?”
“Of course, come on up to my office. And beautiful women call me Eddie. And you, Marcus, I’d prefer you call me Mr. Caruso.”